Poetry

A Man Walks a Lonely Road

A man walks.

Walks along a lonely road,

the road to take a life,

a life that he knows,

or a life he doesn’tknow.

What does a man know?

Does a man know what road he walks on?

On a road he does not decide to walk down,

but down he walks until the end of his hourglass,

the hourglass that tracks his life of recklessness,

recklessness of his choices,

the choice of a road to take a life.

The lives that he now carries.

Carries in the name of all his sins,

Sins that scar him on his way down the road.

The road ofloneliness,

loneliness because of the responsibility of dealing with killing another.

Another’s lifethat he can never give back,

back to the family and the friends of that soul.

The soul that’s gone forever because he pulled a simple trigger!

The trigger that helped him begin this road,

the road of a lonely man.

A man that felt bad for the death of the ones he now carries.

Carries because he was the same as their lives, he was the same!

Same, but different.

Different in the eyes of this man,

the man who couldn’t stand himself.

Himself being a murderer and taking another’s life.

The life of a soldier,

a soldier who has now been left behind.

Behind by the others he didn’t see,

see walking next to him on the same road,

to the bitter end of his road.

The road he will never walk again.

 Joshua Riding

I made this poem because I wanted to try and betray what I thought a soldier felt. Felt like walking a road that he owns, but he isn’t deciding where he goes and what turns he makes. He is lonely because he feels like there is no one that understands him how it feels to kill someone. He doesn’t know how to live with killing someone else because he wasn’t told how too he was only given a gun and trained with a gun and how to take a life.

           

The inspiration I got for this poem came from a book called “All Quiet on the Western Front” where in the end the main character Paul was happy to die because he had nothing to go back to. He had lost his friends being casualties of war and his mom and dad were left. There was no reason to go back because he had created such a big connection to his friends that they were his family now. That’s all he cared about that’s all he remembered that was what he wanted to protect and that’s what he couldn’t do.

I had an inspiration from Shakespeare because I loved the way that he made things have a nice rhythm but is able to connect it to things that you wouldn’t think about. But, I liked the rhythm the most so I tried to make it feel like it rhymes by incorporating the last word of every sentence into the next line. The feeling it gives off is it could be different or the same like Shakespeare and have different meanings.

What I will do at the exhibition is memorize my poem because I feel like memorizing it I can emphasize the words more and get my words time and said in the way I want to better. The way that I can use hand motions feels like it would help my poem better than pictures can. I feel like hand motions are more familiar than pictures of just a road and a grave stone. But, also I memorize it because it should be talked to the people through a person instead of a screen.

Watch my poem Here

Truth of war Project

Here is the Essay
Joshua Riding

Project reflection

What this project was mostly about World War I and II where we read two books All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughter house five. We started out with a question which was what the truth of war is for a soldier. We learned about how Hitler came to power and what the repercussions were for it and how that affected people in that time. We found out differences in fighting styles for first with World War I where it was mostly trench warfare and then it moved from that straight to urban warfare where tactics changed a lot.

Perseverance was the habit of heart and mind that I used the most since it was hard for me to sit down and focus so I used music to keep me on topic and also going out into the hallway so I wouldn’t be as distracted, but I still had some difficulty. I also used it when I was at my house because I could have just gotten off working and started to play a game but I stuck to a schedule to help me. I also would say I used perspective because I see war as bad and has things that contribute to actually liking war or at least a small amount of exposure to war.

A big thing that I had changed in my essay was that I was instead of basing the whole thing off of video games to just include it into the story, but only as a paragraph. Also I had changed it so that it didn’t say back in the olden days which I used to use to explain WWI, WWII. Changing the story from just games to all around made it better because instead of being games are what made this happen or are a horrible propaganda I have it so it is more games are a propaganda, but aren’t as bad. Taking out the olden times was needed a lot because if I kept it in there then it would be like what is he talking about the olden days.

If I had another week to work on this project I would start with my weakest thing which I think is my essay and I would spruce that up a little bit more and then for the picture I would work more on that. What I would want to add to the essay is add more quotes into it to make it more powerful and showing that the points I’m explaining are being seen by the people in these books as well. What I would change for the project would be the pictures and how they aren’t as smooth as I would like. Everything else I think is good in my essay and project all it needs is what everything needs refinement.

Vietnam Veteran interview

What we did was get in touch with a vietnam Veteran and interview him about his experiences going into the war in the war and when he was away from the war.

Joshua Riding

Project Reflection

1.     How did the interview change or affirm your perspective of the truth of war?
Well I have always not liked war and in the interview our Veteran said that he had liked at the time and wanted to help, but now doesn’t like it and especially the Afghanistan war. It was just showing back then everyone was for their country and now that more people can’t keep everything from the public so we get to see more things that are not supposed to be happening and should be stopped.

2.      What was the most interesting thing you learned in your veteran interview?
The most interesting thing I learned in my interview was that you had to go into the army to go to college that I had never knew about until this interview. That is amazing that you had to serve some time to get into college.

3.     As a historian, how could you use your veteran interview?
If I was a historian than I could use this interview to see how people had changed from loving the war to hating it, from wanting to help to asking why he should help. I could also use this to see whether more people loved the war back then than now and how it affected people in between that time.

4.      What was the most valuable part of the process during this project?  (Preparation, group work, real world connections, other?)
The most valuable part about this project would have to be the group I was in and working with the group because I was lucky to get a good group that worked together and that knew when to do anything and do everything they needed to do. 


My Gulf of Tonkin Writing